Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Editorials: Brokering a truce in Mandaue
THE truce brokered by Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia in Mandaue City has, not surprisingly, raised worries that it could lead to an extreme opposite of the one prevailing before the agreement was set in place.
While sniping by opposition councilors led by Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna and the counter-offensive by Mayor Jonas Cortes’ group sometimes went overboard, relevant issues were also brought to the fore.
The role of Cortes’ relatives in his governance and the logic of City Hall appropriation measures were examples of important issues discussed amidst the swirl of a heated verbal exchange.
The worry was that the truce would prod the opposition to let go of its fiscalizing task while at the same time make the mayor act blind to the failings and abuse, if any, by the political opposition.
The truce, though, as explained by both Cortes and Fortuna, only concerns the verbal excesses and issues that are not of public concern, and does not stop them from tackling important concerns of governance.
Governor’s role
Critics, meanwhile, have rightly noted the governor’s own dilemma in brokering the truce considering her own conflict with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña—a rift that had at certain instances affected the implementation of projects.
But one must note that Mandaue and othe other local government unit bogged down by conflict, Compostela, are under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Government, thus the governor needed to act on the matter.
What is interesting to find out would be Garcia and Osmeña’s reaction had, say, President Arroyo acted as aggressively as the governor did in resolving their conflict instead of announcing a hands-off policy to it.
Would the governor and the mayor be as open to a brokering from “above” as Cortes and Fortuna were?
Political realities
As for the Mandaue conflict, there is still no assurance that the truce will hold for long considering that next year politicians will again start positioning for the 2010 elections, that is, if they haven’t done so yet.
In the end, conflicts like those in Mandaue, Compostela and even that one between the governor and the mayor will always succumb to the strategizing done by politicians for electoral battles.
